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Social media costs candidates their jobs, report says

Remember that wild vacation you took with your friends last year? You couldn’t wait to post the pictures on Facebook so everyone could see how cool you are
and how great your trip was.

Or that time when you drunkenly tweeted from the bar, or complained about your boss on a friend’s wall?

Be honest: You’ve been in—or almost been in—situations like these before.

While your friends may have thought your trip looked awesome or your boss was terrible, do you think potential employers thought so, too?

A recent study
by Harris Interactive and CareerBuilder found that 43 percent of hiring managers who research candidates via social media say they’ve found information
that caused them not to hire someone. This number is up 9 percentage points from last year.

The amount of employers who research candidates via social media is also up this year. Thirty-nine percent of hiring managers say they use social media to
vet applicants, compared with 37 percent last year.

Employers who took a candidate out of the running for a job after looking at his social media profiles did so for the following reasons:

Candidate posted provocative/inappropriate photos (50 percent)

Candidate shared information about drinking or using drugs (48 percent)

Candidate bad mouthed a previous employer (33 percent)

Candidate had poor communication skills (30 percent)

While inappropriate information on your social media profiles can cost you a job, the right information can earn you one. One in five hiring managers said
they found something on social media that caused them to hire a candidate. Here are a few things they liked:

Candidate conveyed a professional image (57 percent)

The hiring manager got a good feel for the candidate’s personality (50 percent)